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THE KING’S BUSINESS
Mac Laren’s Colossians There is a deep lesson in the word as to the true method of attaining cleanness of life and spirit. W e cannot make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to God and the purity will come. W hen white ants eat away all the inside of a piece of furniture they leave the outside shell apparently solid, and it stands until some weight is laid upon it, then goes down with a crash. Many people lose their Chris tianity in that fashion, by its being nibbled away in tiny flakes by a multitude of se cretly working little jaws, and they never know that the pith is out o f it till they want to lean on it. N othing less than our absolute purity will satisfy God about us. Nothing less should satisfy ourselves. The only worthy end of Christ’s work for us is to present us holy, in complete consecration, and without blem ish, in perfect homogeneousness and uni formity of white purity and unreprovable in manifest innocence in His sight. If we call ourselves -Christians let us make it our life’s business to see that the end is being accomplished in us in some tolerable and growing manner. To be “ in Him” is to be complete. “ In Him” we are “blessed with all spiritual ■blessings.” “ In Him” we are “chosen.” “ In Him” God freely bestows His grace upon us. “ In Him” we “ have redemption through His blood.” “ In Him” “all things in heaven and earth are gathered.” “ In Him” “ we have obtained an inheritance.” In Him is the better life of all who live. In Him we have peace though the world be seething with change and storm. If we live in Him, we live in purity and joy. If we die in Him, we die in tranquil trust. If our grave-stones may truly carry the sweet old inscription carved on so many a nameless slab in the catacombs, “ In Christo,” they will also bear the other, “ In pace” (In Peace). If we sleep in Him our glory is assured, for them also that sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him.
A Page of Pearls From I f my love does not rest on Christ it will flicker and flutter, and even where it rests most secure in human love, sure to have to take wing some day, when Death with his woodman’s laxe fells the tree where it nestles. M ind , heart and will must be exercised on Christ, or all His power to purify and bless will be of no avail to us. W e shall be like Gideon’s fleece, dry when the dew is fall ing thick, unless we are continually putting forth living faith. A y ; it is easy to say fine things about pa tience in sufferings and triumph in sorrow when we are prosperous and comfortable; but it is different when we are in the fur nace. This man (Paul), with the chain on his wrist, and the iron entering into his soul, with his life in danger, and all the future uncertain, can say, “ Now I rejoice.” This bird sings in a darkened cage. I f we are to be stable, it must be because we are fastened to something outside of our selves that is stable, just as they have to lash a man to the mast, or other fixed things on deck, if he is not to be washed overboard in the gale. If we are lashed to the un changeable Christ by the “ cords of love” and faith, we, too, in our degree shall be steadfast. I f we are brethren, it is because we have one Father, because in us all there is one life. The name is often regarded as senti mental and metaphorical. . . . But it leads straight to regeneration, and proclaims that all Christians are born again through their faith in Jesus Christ, and thereby par take of a common new life, which makes all its possesors children o f the Highest, and therefore brethren one of another. S anctity , and saint, are used now mainly with the idea of moral purity, but that is a seco'ndary meaning. The. real primary sig nification is separation to God. Consecra tion to Him is the root from which the white flower of purity springs most surely.
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